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Juan Gabriel Vasquezbooks include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers and The Secret History of Costaguana.

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The Sixth Lamentation

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Overview

Larkwood Priory, Suffolk, 1995: Following his afternoon confessions, Father Anselm is stopped by an old man. What, he is asked, should a man do when the world has turned against him? Anselm’s response—claim sanctuary—is to have greater resonance than he could ever have imagined, for the man returns demanding the protection of the Church. He is Eduard Schwermann, a suspected Nazi war criminal.

Meanwhile, with her life running out, Agnes Aubret unburdens a secret to her granddaughter Lucy. Fifty years earlier Agnes lived in occupied Paris and risked her life to smuggle Jewish children to safety until her group was exposed by an SS officer: Eduard Schwermann.

As Father Anselm struggles to discover the truth about Schwermann’s history and Lucy delves ever deeper into her grandmother’s past, their investigations dovetail to reveal a remarkable story, in which two seemingly unconnected lives shockingly converge. William Brodrick is a master of crisp historical re-creation, precision plotting, and morally complex characterization.

Praise

“Rich with medieval and biblical allusion, The 6th Lamentation is an intricate mystery of both the mind and soul…. [Brodrick] has written an engrossing novel in which appearances are disastrously deceptive and the sins of the father painfully come to bear on the sons (and daughters).” —USA Today

“A John le Carré in the making.” —The Daily Telegraph, London

“A cat’s cradle of a mystery with the interwoven stories pulled as taut as a piano wire.” —Martha Grimes